A Trade Deal with China is Unacceptable

Our government has frequently expressed its desire for a free trade agreement with China. Indeed we already have some dubious arrangement with their involvement in Hinkley Point and the suggestion of another similar plant in the south-east. Here I will suggest why such arrangements are bad for us and the suggestion of a free trade deal with the Chinese even worse.

The Nature of the Chinese

The Chinese are insidious; they don’t openly cause problems as the Muslims do but quietly insert themselves into other countries where they may develop their businesses. Their only true god is money, little else matters. Many businesses in South East Asia, for example, are owned by the descendants of Chinese immigrants. More recently we have seen them curry favour in Africa to exploit its mineral wealth. Of course, such businesses turn to their country of origin when products or components are required. They might employ local people but normally only in the lower ranks. Nothing is spent on anything they can do without such as improved working conditions or better equipment. I have seen this; my wife currently works for such a business.

Chinese Product Quality

In my experience over many years, the quality, i.e. fitness for the intended purpose, of a wide range of Chinese products is simply unacceptable. Sometimes it is difficult or near impossible to source products of acceptable quality where the Chinese suppliers dominate the market. Their products might be cheap but simply don’t last. Some, such as electrical items, can be extremely dangerous but might have an undocumented “CE” mark moulded into them. One example I found was a socket adapter which came apart when pulled from the socket exposing live terminals.

I read some years ago that the largest container ship in the world is scheduled to visit the UK annually in the run-up to Christmas. Of course, it brings toys, Christmas decorations and suchlike. Do we really need to import and waste our money on such tat which will end up in the bin after a short time?

The quality of Chinese steel is a major concern; in many cases, it simply does not conform to our required standards which were developed over many years. I have had a good bit of hands-on steel fabrication experience over the years and know the difference. In particular, the Chinse steel is of inconsistent composition and one only needs to drill a hole in it confirm that. The British product drills smoothly but the bit continually snags on hard spots in the Chinese product. A friend who is a CNC machinist confirms the same issue in machining part completed Chinese steel components but the “bean counter” is allowed to override the Engineer; the cost is still lower even with a very high reject rate (around 50%). For that reason I used to source re-usable British / European steel but that no longer seems possible; it is all being exported as scrap to feed the Chinese furnaces.

The worrying fact is that steel that does not comply with our accepted standards is being imported. Often it is not even necessary to test the steel as the non-conformance to our standard profiles is obvious by visual inspection. It is worth noting that some Japanese multinationals in the oil and gas industry simple refuse to accept products containing Chinese steel and some even exclude Indian steel. Are they going to be allowed to supply the rails for HS2?

Of course, there are industries in China which are well controlled but most of these have been set up by international companies which have enforced proper standards. The same might be said for some major engineering projects but there is a large pool of western expats to be drawn on for the required expertise.

The Chinese Business Model

We have seen the demise of many of our native steel manufacturers through their being unable to compete with Chinese imports. That is a direct consequence of how the Chinese operate:

Sadly our own government is unbelievably naïve or is complicit. Maybe corruption plays its part but whatever the reasons, the failure of the government to protect those industries from unfair competition is unacceptable.

Another concern is the propensity of the Chinese to steal intellectual property. I’m sure that is one of the key reasons why they want to be involved in our nuclear industry.

Animal Welfare in China

Every year the dog eating festival is celebrated during the summer solstice in Yulin, Guangxi. Thousands of dogs are transported in atrocious conditions from far and wide to await their execution in full view of those next in line. It is reported that some are boiled or roasted alive as this is said to improve the flavour.

The Chinese seem to have a taste for anything; I have heard it said that any creature with forward facing eyes is eligible. I recall some years ago seeing a TV programme (probably not in the UK) showing snakes and other reptiles being skinned alive in a restaurant kitchen after being selected by the customer. However, possibly the worst case I have been told of (by an expat who had witnessed it) is their taste for monkey brains, one of those foods which they consider gives them special powers. In that case, the restaurant tables are equipped with a hole in the centre. The monkey is installed protruding through the hole sufficiently for the top of the head to be cut off. Once that is done the customers eagerly spoon out the brain; the monkey has to be alive at the start of this process for those special powers to develop in the consumer.

One of the other serious acts of cruelty is the extraction of bear bile from a live animal kept in a cage too small for it to move around. After many such extractions, the bear will die. Again they believe that the consumption of it has special health benefits. We get a few Australian TV programmes over here, one of which is concerned with their border control and the attempts at smuggling. One unusual item that caught the attention of the customs officer was the penis of a deer which a Chinese guy was trying to smuggle in. Apparently, that is another product which has to be removed from the live animal to secure its beneficial effects.

Of course, we are unlikely to import any of these products or methods but do we really want to deal with people who carry out such atrocities routinely in their lives?

Conclusion

There are many reasons why we might want to avoid trading with China, some of them practical, some simply abhorrent. Their involvement in Hinkley Point presents a serious safety concern and, of course, they are only there to steal the technology. As ever, our politicians take the opposite view and have welcomed the Chinese and their imports to the detriment of our own industries. They have even suggested that a trade deal with China should be pursued as a matter of priority.

They need to be forced to think again, both on that and the involvement of the Chinese in key infrastructure projects.

[Ed: we’d like to remind our readers that the opinions expressed by authors in their articles are their own and not necessarily shared or endorsed by UKIP Daily. UKIP Daily, like our Party, stands for Free Speech. We don’t do ‘No Platforming’. Controversial arguments made in articles can and should be debated in the comments.]

About The Author

An Engineer turned software developer who often works outside the UK but retains close family ties there. For that and other reasons I am concerned that my country is being given up to the control of others

21 Comments

Michael Keal
on July 10, 2018 at 7:47 pm

Jack your mention of the possibility of yet another Hinkley-style boondoggle in the South East came as news to me that is as unwelcome as it is unsurprising.
The enthusiasm with which China has promoted and continues to promote Earth Day and their enthusiasm for building nuclear power stations in the UK seems at odds with their enthusiasm for building coal-fired power stations in China and other parts of the world they choose to favour.

Clearly, they fully understand that carbon dioxide is not the world’s climate’s control knob (or if they think it is they don’t care) but rather the control knob that can be used to turn up their economy while turning down the economies of Western democracies they wish to ruin.
More simply put, energy from coal-fired plants is probably one third too one fifth the cost of energy from pressurised water reactor (PWR) power stations. (Which I predict will soon be made obsolete by molten salt reactors. [MSRs] ).

And here’s another thing. In a future war, although dropping a bomb on a coal-fired power station would be devastating enough, bombing a PWR power plant? Think Fukushima, Chornobyl on steroids.

And now back to your main point, trade deals.

The move away from countries raising revenue through tariffs on trade and replacing this with raising revenue from income tax, opening the way for tariff-free trade, has, in my view, been at the very heart of the rampant rise in globalism we see today because it has taken the power that people in democracies once had through the ballot-box and put this into the hands of a large global governments who are answerable to only themselves or, to be more precise, answerable to whoever controls them. (Search on line for ‘when did income tax start for an interesting read.)

It is, I think, a major reason that many don’t bother to vote saying they feel that voting doesn’t change anything. Sadly this is, in some respects, literally true and is arguably one of UKIP’s greatest challenges.
However we need to bear in mind that the globalists know exactly what they’re doing and they must be terrified we’ll find out.
No wonder they call us Nazis, nationalists and populists with such hate and venom.

And as for a ‘free’ trade deal with China?

Surely only the fake conservatives, with their fake Brexit, will buy into that?

Having spoken to several of our automotive component suppliers whose products we sell online, there is a difference between “Made In China”, and “Made In China”.

Yes, there is some really cheap and nasty tat that is manufactured in Chinese factories, but then there are some really good factories that do manufacture good quality products. One of our suppliers does OE quality clutch kits, they are designed by engineers here in the UK and initial prototypes are also built and tested here. The finished designs are then subsequently manufactured in Chinese factories, vetted and checked by our supplier, and even the tools used in the manufacturing process are designed and built in the UK and sent over to the factory. The result is an exceptionally good quality product.

Then on the other hand we get numerous touting emails from Chinese manufacturers offering us automotive components at dirt cheap prices. Sometimes you do get what you pay for though.

But then we only have to look at the huge volume of products and goods that do get imported into the UK, which are subject to tariffs imposed by the EU. One of the arguments in favour of any free-trade deal with China is the potential reduction in price to the end consumer, if those tariffs didn’t need to be applied. But then again, would our huge profit-seeking corporations really ‘care’ enough about consumers to pass those savings on?

That is why I feel ‘free-trade agreements’ are a scam, and do not benefit the consumer as much as they do the corporations exploiting the cheap labour in poorer countries.

Some sort of trading arrangement might be to our advantage though, I have been told by several people that like in India, there is a growing middle-class in China, with greater amounts of disposable income, that are tired of the ‘cheap tat’ manufactured in their own countries, and seek out products manufactured in Britain and elsewhere. The “Made In Britain” logo can be a big selling point to those more discerning consumers in growing marketplaces.

Indeed there are good products for the reasons we have both stated but the challenge is in keeping out the tat and combating low cost dumping of it to the disadvantage of our own industries. The standards exist but are clearly not being enforced properly.

You are right to identify the danger of a free trade deal with China – the Chinese would beat us hands down with the complicity of our corporations who have no loyalty to their country only loyatly to their bottom line. Adam Smith would be horrified how his name is used to promote globalisation. He did not write his thesis in a world where corporations could privatise profits and externalise losses onto the state.

I prefer to have a free trade deal with countries that are on the same social and wage income level as ourselves.

e. I have always argued that Britain should move towards a high wage economy similar to Norway and Switzerland. Germans, I am told seek out quality products rather than cheap goods. People in the UK often buy cheap Chinese tat because they have too – they do not have much disposable income.

Re bear bile farming: Jill Robinson, the wonderful lady who has run Animals Asia for several decades, campaigns among other things to educate the Chinese public not to buy bear bile products. I should think this approach is probably as effective and important as campaigning to illegalise this sickening trade. Bears can be incarcerated in a tiny cage for as long as 30 YEARS suffering horrendous pain. Just imagine yourself in a cage like that just for one hour let alone 30 years. I would never buy a Chinese remedy just in case: it used to be banned here, but I wouldnt like to assume that this is enforced anymore. Poor animals, bears and others, I totally despair.

I know enough about steel quality, as my late father was involved in its manufacture at Port Talbot, to recognise the extremely poor quality of anything manufactured from Chinese steel. The threads often become jagged and therefore the nuts do not run on evenly and firmly. Putting the correct torque onto the fixings can result in them breaking. Chinese made cars, motorcycles and even bridges that I have seen in Africa really are of a very low quality, cheap yes but having an unacceptably short life due to poor steel and rubber as well as being substandard in both design and manufacture. I make a point of avoiding buying anything sourced from China.

Whilst I don’t like some of the views expressed in this article, on infrastructure, I agree there are national security grounds to exclude them although it is a little too late (did you know the entire BT broadband network is owned and maintained by Huawei of China? Basically they already have access to ALL of your information, and those green boxes at the end of your street belong to them, thanks to David Cameron).

Now THAT is interesting! Hardly a day goes buy that I don’t find out that a Chinese company (i.e. the Chinese Government because they own them all) owns some piece of vital infrastructure of ours. When UKIP get into power (don’t hold your breath) they’ll have to nationalise the lot of them!

Mindset: Your description of the Chinese mindset appears to be the same as mine of the Americans – money, greed, local people in low positions and so on. So what’s new?

Quality: I can only agree with, but as you say bean counters don’t care. Conversely, you don’t mention the West’s obsession with supply chain managment (designed to obstruct change and too lazy to renegotiate even when products are faulty . . we will work with them to improve . . now what is 6 down?).

Animal welfare: The examples you give, if true are indefensible. But have you ever seen a fat cat in Morocco. In Siberia, anything that moved (including white bears) was fair game.
Your question – do we really want to deal with people who carry out such atrocities routinely in their lives? Well we *live with* Muslims cutting the throats of live unstunned animals in Britain, some in the streets . . so what’s your point? Put your own house in order before casting the first stone pehaps.

Conclusion: There are plenty of Countries we trade with who can get a similar ‘F minus’ for their modus operandi in all things. The list is endless, so I assume this is just the first of a series of slagging off of countries across the World you don’t want to trade with.
Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand the point you are trying to make, but it is a little blinkered. In any case how is this relevant to UKIP getting us out of the Common Market?

I am as opposed to the followers of Islam as anyone. A possible Chinese deal is relevant to our getting out of the EU as seems to be one of the governments priorities after we exit the EU. Of course there are others that should be added to the list…